


Quality Time

by Sinclaironfire



Series: Unsung Hero [2]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Angst, Attempted Family Bonding, But what else is new?, Canon-Typical Violence, Donald generally suffers, Donald is tired, Donald wants to be normal, Donald wants to relax with his family, Family Bonding, Family Drama, McDucks are never normal, Scrooge attempting to bond, Scrooge has poor people skills, Scrooge is trying his best, he doesn't get what he wants, poor communication skills, someone help these idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 19:56:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15226713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinclaironfire/pseuds/Sinclaironfire
Summary: Donald and Scrooge have different ideas on what constitutes as quality time.





	Quality Time

 

* * *

 

 

“Go on an adventure,” Scrooge had begged.

“It’ll be fun,” the boys had said.

“You need a break from working on your boat,” Mrs. Beakley insisted.

“Bet you’re ready to spend some quality time with your family, right Mr. Duck?” Launchpad had said as they took off.

Quality time. That was a joke. Other families had quality time playing monopoly or parcheesi. Other families went to the park and had picnics or played baseball. Other families weren’t like the McDuck-Duck family who didn’t dealt in curses, magic, monsters, or on adventures for quality time on am almost daily basis.

But Donald wasn’t apart of some other painfully wonderful normal family. His family were the McDucks and the McDucks didn’t do anything normal. Even something like quality time was peppered with danger and intrigue and it was all because his Uncle Scrooge didn’t know how to bond with others unless it involved life-threatening circumstances.

Well, it wasn’t all Uncle Scrooge’s fault. Donald did admit that he missed the thrill of adventure. You never did feel quite so alive when you were so close to dying. But things were different now. They were so different.

Della was gone.

In a heartbreaking instant, his sister was gone and she left three chicks who didn’t need adventure and treasure but stability and someone who always be there for them when they came home. Uncle Scrooge was a wonderful person but stability was not in his vocabulary. He was on the go constantly for the next venture that was sure to bring treasure, adventure, and thrills.

Donald couldn’t be like Scrooge anymore. He couldn’t leave at the drop of a hat. He needed to be there for his boys.

Once Huey, Louie, and Dewey were officially in his custody,  Donald swore up and down, on his name and for the boys’ sakes that he would put all that behind him. He couldn’t be Donald Duck: The Adventurer, The World Sailor, The Hero anymore. He had to be Donald Duck: The Dad.

He was more than happy to be The Dad. Being The Dad was safe, fulfilling, and rewarding. He saw the boys grow up into three distinct individuals. He did everything that he could to ensure that his boys had a safe and normal childhood. But at the end of the day, he was still part of the McDuck family and the boys, who barely knew of their heritage and that danger that their ancestors flirted with relentlessly, were doomed to attract the same danger and threats that he once did.

What Donald didn’t know was that the boys’ first introduction to the hazards of being a McDuck would come in the form of asking his Uncle Scrooge to babysit for him. In hindsight, he should have known that Scrooge couldn’t babysit like a normal Uncle.

The boys hadn’t known their Uncle Scrooge for very long, less that 24 hours, when they went to an destroyed mythical civilization, faced deadly assassins, dodged booby-traps, and incurred the wrath of an ancient sea monster.

All things considered, for who their family was, that was a pretty safe outing for them. But still, Donald had enough adventure and thrills to last him seven lifetimes. All he wanted was a quiet family night but noooo. He wasn’t going to get that.

Instead of say, a lovely night watching a movie or playing Monopoly, Donald Duck found himself lost in some secret room of some god-forsaken temple, split up from the children, Launchpad, and Mrs. Beakley with an unconscious Scrooge at his feet. As if things couldn’t get any worse, the walls of the temple room they were in were starting to close in.

And there were snakes falling from the ceiling.

And water was starting to flood from the floor.

And Donald was sure that he heard the tell-tale sound of rigged crossbows getting ready to fire.

Whoever designed this death trap room, had obviously never heard of such a thing as overkill. Donald griped and grumbled as he picked up Scrooge who was now developing a large bruise on the back of his head. It was hard to move with the water flooding and Scrooge on his back but Donald managed to make due. He shimmied up the walls of the temple, muttering curses under his breath, just barely missing the arrows being fired at him and his uncle.

Donald climbed to the top of the moving walls and rested for a moment. He didn’t have long. The room would still most likely flood and the snakes were still falling from the ceiling. Luckily for Donald, he didn’t fear serpents. He grabbed the longest snake he could find and used it as a whip to keep the others away.

“WHY. DOES. THIS. ALWAYS. HAPPEN. TO. ME?!” Donald shouted.

Just one night where nothing weird or strange happened, was that so much to ask for? Apparently the answer was yes because no sooner had Donald struck every last venomous snake, did someone come up from behind him and brought a very heavy stone to the back of his head.

The last salvageable thought Donald had was, ‘Why couldn’t we have played monopoly?’

 

* * *

 

 

Scrooge woke in an awful state. His head ached and he was facedown in an inch of water. Scrooge sputtered and choked. He rose from the water and upon seeing his surroundings, Scrooge concluded that he had missed something. He tried to remember what that something was.

As far as he could recall, he remember that his family had gone on an adventure…they got lost…he was with – “DONALD!” Scrooge gasped.

Where was Donald? There wasn’t much room in the tiny space of the temple room where Donald could go and Scrooge knew his nephew. It wasn’t like Donald to abandon someone, especially family.

That meant that Donald was either dead or he was taken.

Scrooge knew Donald well and dying was just one of those things he never saw his nephew doing. The lad was too hard-headed and stubborn to do something like die. No, if he knew Donald, and he knew Donald well, the lad was probably in some life-threatening danger. Nothing too severe – most likely some light torture or nearly getting eaten by something that had too many heads or teeth.

“Better go rescue the lad,” Scrooge said, getting to work.

Primitive drawings on the temple wall gave a clue to where Donald was. An angry duck, whipping and shouting while snakes fled from his wrath was on one part of the wall. The next scene showed said angry duck on a large slab, bound and gagged. The next scene was very graphic and poorly done but Scrooge saw that the angry duck was decapitated and that his heart was ripped out of his body and being fed to some large monstrous lava monster.

“Oh….that’s not good,” Scrooge muttered.

Well, it didn’t take a genius to figure out who the angry duck was. All that mattered now was finding Donald and the kids and getting the hell out of the temple. As he climbed and traveled through the temple, Scrooge listened carefully for any sound of his family.

Surprisingly, he heard nothing. His family wasn’t the quietest around. True, they could be stealthily when the time called for it but in general, they were loud as hell. Webby’s battle cry could be heard from three floors up or down. It was then that Scrooge heard it: thunderous drums. He had been in enough ancient temples to know that the hammering of thunderous drums never meant anything good. It was always bad. He would bet all the money in the Money Bin that those drums signified something awful.

Scrooge came to the end of the tunnel. He was at the top of an open cavern that was fashioned into a ceremonial hall. Torches hung on every wall and down below, bubbling furiously was a lake of lava. Gurgling, the lava started to move to the top of the ceremonial hall. It opened its maw and roared.

It was hungry.

At the ceremonial hall, on the very top, was a plateau. On the plateau, there was a stone slab and on the stone slab was Donald. He didn’t move an inch or quiver as the lava monster reached the top. A man dressed in black and red ceremonial garb climbed the stairs to the plateau. He spoke in a booming voice in a language that Scrooge did not understand but when the man raised a crooked dagger, Scrooge got the message loud and clear. He scrambled out of the tunnel he was in but the man and Donald were too far away.

The man brought the knife down but Donald, having acquired a sixth sense of impending death, woke at the last moment and caught the knife with his feet. The man was intent on sacrificing him to the lava monster and Donald who was intent on staying alive shouted, “WHY IS IT ALWAYS ME?! WHY ME?!”

“DONALD!” Scrooge shouted as he ran to help.

“YOU COULDN’T HAVE COME SOONER?! HE’S GONNA-“ The lava monster roared ferociously. Donald groaned and added, “AND THERE’S A MONSTER TOO?! UNCLE SCROOGE!”

“I’m working on it! Keep yourself together!” Scrooge shouted back as he fought the high priest’s army to reach Donald.

“THAT’S EASY FOR YOU TO SAY! HE’S TRYING TO EAT ME-“ Donald jerked his head in the direction of the lava monster. “-AND HE’S TRYING TO CUT OUT MY HEART!” He nodded in the priest’s direction whose dagger Donald was still keeping at bay with his feet.

“I’ll be there in a tic!”

The lava monster loomed over Donald. It didn’t care if his meal was alive and kicking or dead and still. It was hungry and it wanted to feed. The monster brought it’s fearsome mouth down onto the slab. It devoured the priest, the slab, and Donald.

“NO!” Scrooge screamed.

The monster swallowed. Scrooge watched in horror as the lump went down the monster’s throat. The world seemed to come to a stop. Donald was dead. He lost Della and now Donald too. Oh…he had done it. He wanted to go to the temple. He had wanted spend time with his family. Just a little quality time! He never would have guessed in a million years that - The lava monster coughed and hacked. Suddenly, it threw up. Lava spewed everywhere, setting the temple on fire. The priest’s army ran for their lives. Hanging on the uvula of the monster was Donald.

“TRY AND EAT ME? SCREW YOU!”

The monster, now thoroughly enraged, spat Donald out of it’s mouth. Donald took his tradition fighting stance but upon seeing the monster tower over him, thought better of it.

“RUN, RUN, RUN!” Donald shouted as he grabbed his Uncle Scrooge.

The two took off with the monster close behind.

“WHY DO I LET YOU TALK ME INTO THESE THINGS?!”  Donald raged.

“WHAT THINGS?!”

“THIS!” Donald pointed to the lava monster chasing after them. “This kind of thing!”

“It’s fun!” Scrooge retorted.

“NO! IT’S NOT! IT’S ALWAYS SOMETHING WITH YOU! WE’RE NEVER NORMAL! WE’RE ALWAYS DOING SOMETHING!”

“I  though you wanted me to spend more time with you and the boys?” Scrooge said as they ran for their lives.

“YES! By doing normal stuff like normal families! Like playing Monopoly!”

“I don’t play Monopoly, I have a Monopoly!”

“That’s not the point! It’s what normal people do! How many families do you think run for their lives from a lava monster?”

“We surely can’t be the first!”

The lava monster spewed volcanic ash and magma at them. In the tight narrow hallway, avoiding death was a challenge that did not come without some form of pain. Donald’s tailfeathers had caught aflame.

“Uncle Scrooge!” Donald growled as he put his feathers out. “This is what I’m talking about!”

“Alright!” Scrooge knew when he was beat. “Tell you what, we survive this, we do something “normal”, deal?!”

“Deal!” Donald agreed.

 

* * *

 

 

“How do you keep winning?!” Scrooge wailed, as Donald took the last of his money.

“I don’t know,” Donald answered, shaking his head and counting his money.

“You invested in Baltic Avenue! Baltic!”

“And you went bankrupt on Baltic Avenue.”

Scrooge moaned and wailed. “Beakley! Beakley, do you see what he’s doing to me?”

“Play nice…” Beakley muttered, not really paying attention and focusing more on her knitting.

“I want a rematch!” Scrooge demanded.

“Whatever you say, Uncle Scrooge, whatever you say.”

Scrooge and Donald played long into the night. Over a hundred rounds and strategies and a few temper tantrums later, Scrooge never won once. Monopoly was effectively banned but Donald was satisfied. He’d gotten the quality time that he wanted. 


End file.
